


We Mermaid for Each Other

by kiki_chu



Series: We Mermaid for Each Other [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M, MerMay, MerMay 2018, Professional Mermaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-13 12:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14748990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiki_chu/pseuds/kiki_chu
Summary: Yuuri became a merman his second year in Detroit.A short fic for MerMay2018.





	1. We Mermaid for Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by the mermaids at my local Renaissance Festival.
> 
> Thanks to [Sleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleigh) for coming to see the mermaids with me and thinking up the title.

Yuuri became a merman his second year in Detroit. 

 

His run in the Grand Prix resulted in two fourth place finishes and his season ended with a bronze at Japanese Nationals. He had a few ice shows scattered throughout the year, but when the new year starts he’s already looking for a part time job to help him with his expenses.

 

A girl from his pole dancing class asked him to cover her while her broken leg healed since their body shapes were similar and he would fit into her tail and he was an athlete with a swimsuit-ready body (it was February and he hadn’t had time to fall out of shape yet). 

 

The job promised to pay well and amounted to him basically sitting in a bathtub, kicking his legs to wiggle the silicone tail, and smiling and waving at the people who gathered around him. The best part was that it was a low time commitment job. When he was scheduled, he worked for a couple of hours, but the only other things expected of him was to stay on top of the upkeep for his equipment and to stay in shape (which he tried to do regardless, with varying degrees of success).

 

By his third year in Detroit, Yuuri had signed on with his classmate’s company and had finally saved up enough to purchase his own tail. He created his own mersonality and had corresponding social media accounts that his new roommate and rinkmate, a Thai skater named Phichit, was kind enough to run for him.

 

They were out on the shores of Lake Michigan taking new photos of Yuuri in his new tail. It’s several shades of pearlescent blue with dorsal and pectoral fins along with the extravagant caudal fin. Left to his own devices, Yuuri would have gone with something plainer, the tail was expensive enough without all the additions. But Phichit said that the tail needed to be amazing to give Yuuri a point of interest since he didn’t have long hair and didn’t want to wear any sort of top. Yuuri’s jewelry a collection of golden cuffs, bangs, and beads that he had acquired from thrift stores and yard sales was pretty, but Yuuri needed to take advantage of his leg strength to work an over the top tail.

 

Yuuri thought that maybe PhichiT might enjoy mermaiding more than he did, but when he asked his roommate if he wanted to try, Phichit said that he more enjoyed being a mermanager than being the one in the tail. Yuuri should just swim, pretty and quiet - his mersona was mute -, and let Phichit make him a seastar. Yuuri was happy enough to hand over the things he found difficult, like the social media, to his friend along with a cut of any money he makes.

 

It’s cold, only Mid-March, but there’s no snow to be seen, so Yuuri allows Phichit to do his makeup and dust him with pearlescent powder and spends his morning laying on the sand and perching on rocks and doing his best to look mythical and not cold as Phichit darts about him with his DSLR camera occasionally telling Yuuri to angle his chin this way or turn his body that way.

 

Phichit goes off to look for another location, leaving Yuuri with a blanket to enjoy the view of the lake. It’s no Hasetsu beach but there is still something calming about being on the water.

 

Several yards out into the lake the surface rippled. Yuuri paid little mind, the lake was full of fish and life. Then there were some bubbles a little closer. A head rose about the surface, a pale face surrounded by long silver hair that floated to the surface. Yuuri stared, and eyes as blue as the crisp, cloudless sky above them, stared back.

 

Yuuri wondered what sort of crazy man would be swimming in the lake this time of year.

 

The swimmer’s mouth opened and his pale pink lips moved. The sound that came out was a melody of chirps and clicking. Behind him the tips of a magenta fin dipped above the water.

 

Another merman? There were a lot more girls in the mermaid business than guys, and Yuuri didn’t know of any other men doing it in the area. Maybe this guy was just a hobbyist? But that still left open the question of why he was swimming in the ice cold lake.

 

“Yuuri, I found the perfect place!”

 

Phichit was crunching through the rocks pushing a wheelchair they had decorated and converted as a way for Yuuri to move when he couldn’t take his tail off.

 

When Yuuri looked back over to the mystery man he was gone, leaving only another set of ripples. Phichit half carried Yuuri into the wheelchair and carted him away. Yuuri thought about telling his friend about the other merman, but decided to keep the short encounter to himself.

 

Another disappointing skating season later (Phichit and Celestino both try to tell him he’s improving by leaps and bounds), and Yuuri was back in his tail. Mermaids were becoming more popular and the company that he got booked through acquired a new tank that big enough for the mermaids to swim in. It has a deck up top that the mermaid can rest on while keeping their tail in the water and a cut out so they can interact with the tank viewers.

 

Yuuri has swum in his tail plenty of times, but it still took him time to get used to performing in the tank. He enjoys working events in the big tank even when though there are young children who don’t know better and bang on the tank and also annoying adults who do know better but do the same regardless.

 

He received a booking to work the big tank for a big charity event. Yuuri brought a tube of bubbles and a bag of chocolate coins up to the deck so he had a way to interact with visitors while resting. 

 

Yuuri took a rest while the charity goers sat for their three course meal. There’s a curtain drawn in front of the tank so he doesn’t have to worry about anyone peaking as he sips on a bottle of iced coffee and nibbles on an energy bar.

 

The curtain swayed in front of his eyes and Yuuri leaned out the cutout to see who was looking in. A man dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt is standing sandwiched between the tank and the curtain. He glanced back and forth, but happened to look up and catch Yuuri’s eye. The man’s hair is silver and short save for the long fringe covering his left eye. His eyes are light blue, almost glowing in the dimness caused by the closed curtain.

 

The man smiled brightly, and runs around the back of the tank. Yuuri heard the clanking of someone climbing up the metal ladder and then a silver head popped up again. This close Yuuri could recognize him even though his hair was different. It was the crazy man who was swimming in the freezing lake a year ago.

 

“You’re not supposed to be up here,” Yuuri whispered even though there wasn’t anyone around to overhear them.

 

“My name is Viktor.” The man’s speech was stilted and hesitant, but there was something about the cadence of his voice that made it pleasant to listen to nonetheless. “I searched so long... everywhere for you!”

 

Viktor’s face was concerned. His is face was beautiful; Yuuri wanted to take a picture of it and frame it. Viktor looked behind him back down the ladder as though he might have been followed.

 

Yuuri looked at him blankly. “Why?”

 

Viktor was clearly surprised. “You have been captured! Displayed in a fish tank.”

 

Viktor hopped into the water. Yuuri realized that the man had taken his pants and underwear off. There was nowhere for him to go, and Yuuri could only watch as Viktor swum over to him. Yuuri stilled. Had Viktor always been wearing fins over his ears?

 

Viktor reached Yuuri’s side. With the other man this close Yuuri could see the long scaled tail helping Viktor tread water. That had definitely not been there before. Viktor’s hand rose out of the water, his delicately clawed fingertips were the same magenta as the tail in the water, the tail that Yuuri had seen a year ago.

 

A merman! This man was a real life merman.

 

“I have come… to rescue you!”


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri and Viktor travel.

Yuuri spends the flight - eighteen hours with a two hour layover - in a state of anxiety. Normally it would be because he was on his way to a competition that he was sure he was going to fail, and he would try to drown out the buzzing noise in his head and the snoring of his coach with music and noise-cancelling headphones. 

 

It’s all different this time. This time he’s not going to a hotel room in a metropolitan city. He’s going home. It’s the first time he’s been back since leaving to train with Celestino in Detroit, but he’s not thinking about that because he has other, more immediate things to worry about.

 

Yuuri’s most immediate concern is that this international sojourn will end with him in jail. Because he’s traveling with Viktor.

 

Beautiful, wonderful Viktor who spent days pestering a sea witch until they told him how to change back and forth between a merman and human just because he wanted to save a captured merman. Delightful, excitable Viktor who still wants to be with Yuuri even after finding out that the latter is not a merman after all but human. Only exteriorly human Viktor who possesses no form of identification and definitely has no passport but who is happily staring out the window the whole flight reporting everything he sees to Yuuri. Yuuri can’t fail to try and sleep or put on his headphones because he wants to wants to see every second of Viktor’s excitement.

 

The trip itself is the combined idea of Phichit and Viktor. Yuuri thinks about home quite a bit, but has always thought that he should be working harder instead of taking a vacation. He keeps pushing it back, promising that he’ll return triumphant, with something to show for his years of absence and hefty fees. 

 

He mentions these feelings once and Viktor says that he’s being ridiculous, and that Viktor wants to meet the people that Yuuri has so many stories about and who had lovingly raised his Yuuri. Viktor also says that he wants to do the “requesting the hand of your child” thing he saw once when Yuuri had left him alone too long with the television.

 

Phichit says that photos of Yuuri and Viktor, who he thinks is a casual hobbyist, as mermen in the onsen would be good not only to promote Yuuri’s mersona, but also as a way to advertise his parent’s inn. Phichit isn’t traveling with them today, he has things to do before he can leave Detroit and plans on visiting his own family in Thailand, but he intends to stay a couple of nights in Japan to check out the onsen and take some photos before all three of them went back to America.

 

Every reasonable argument wore away Yuuri’s resistance and eventually he found himself looking at ticket prices before remembering the issue with Viktor not existing as far as the government knew. Phichit somehow had an answer for that problem. He knows a guy who hooks Yuuri up with some fake papers for Viktor.

 

Still, Yuuri can’t relax until they manage to escape Fukuoka Airport. It turns out that getting his tail through custom is more difficult and awkward than getting an actual merman through. Who knew that Phichit would have connections with someone that could create fake identifications and passports good enough to get them past security in two countries?

 

When they make it to Yu-Topia Katsuki it’s creeping up on midnight. They tired, grimy, and smell like travel. Viktor want to try the onsen that he’s heard so much about. Yuuri is split between worrying introducing Viktor to his family and someone spotting the merman in the bath. He’s exhausted from his brain nagging about every single that could go wrong during the whole trip, and even though his bed sounds like a wonderful proposition, an opportunity to get in the onsen with Viktor sounds too good to miss.

 

Yuuri’s been texting his sister about their travel progress since they landed in Japan and he expects her to be the only one awake to wait up on them. Mari is indeed at the front desk when they cross the threshold, but shortly afterwards Yuuri’s mother dashes out of the kitchen and his father comes over from where he is dozing in front of the television. Yuuri soon finds himself in a very tight but warm hug with both Mari and Viktor standing by watching.

 

“Mom and Dad,” he says once he manages to extract himself from the Katsuki sandwich. His face is already red just knowing what he’s about to say. “This is Viktor, my boyfriend.”

 

Yuuri’s mom claps her hands to her cheeks and gasps. Then she goes for the hug, squeezing Viktor just as tightly as she had her own son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get to mermen in the onsen, but I also really liked where this ended. Maybe someday...
> 
> Thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm hoping to post an epilogue next week ♥


End file.
